


Going Native

by Merfilly



Category: Medicine Man (1992)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick look at Rae's thoughts as the movie ends and she embarks on her new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Native

Rae wasn't certain how she got him to the river. She would never be sure how she had held him back from going into the fire to try and rescue his notes.

What she feared was that Campbell had broken. All his work was being consumed by the raging fires, and there was so little hope for actually duplicating what he had done. Whether finding the cure was selfless or, as she suspected, it was his attempt to try and make up for the lost village, he was almost as lost as she had been on her first day here.

Rae let Palala grab her hand, to help her out of the river, even as she kept her other one clutched in Campbell's shirt, to keep him from going anywhere without her. She heard Kalana talking very quickly, and knew that the woman was making certain that the rest of the village knew she and Campbell were safe.

The thought that it mattered to Kalana, to all of them, didn't seem all that strange until Jahausa brought not one, but two dippers of water to drink. It wasn't just Campbell they worried over. They had accepted her as well.

Something inside her was trying to break the way Campbell had, but one of them had to keep it together. She kept him close, mind ticking over the revelation that it was the ants. Maybe, just maybe those ants or a closely-enough related species thrived somewhere else. As much of a setback as this was, there was still hope.

She would find a way to get Campbell to focus on that, give him more reason to keep forging his unique way in life.

Rae didn't want to press too hard on why that was important. She had plenty of other qualified field researchers who could have been pulled into this, but she _wanted_ Campbell to see this through. No one else could live among the villagers as well as he did. No one else would care enough.

While she doubted there would be sleep, Rae did make Campbell sit down against a tree once they were out of the flash burn range of the fire. He was on remote pilot, and for once it wasn't a huge debate or a fight. Much like he had coaxed and coddled her in the canopy and then on the trek to find the medicine man, now she bullied and commanded him to do what was needed.

As the villagers settled in their core family groups around the big tree they had chosen, Rae settled next to Campbell... and he reacted on instinct. His arm came up, she moved in, and it came around her shoulders. The thought crossed her mind that this was just shock, that he needed the closeness of someone. She didn't complain, because at some point in time during the week, she'd come to see him in a whole new light from the irascible, eccentric scientist of the first day.

`~`~`~`~`

Somewhere in that awful night, sleep did visit, if only for a few moments snatched in the darkness limned by the seeping red of dying embers. She startled awake when he caught himself nodding. He focused on her face before he looked out at the smoldering village, just lit by the coming sun.

"Campbell?" she questioned softly.

He didn't answer, just carefully disentangled from her to rise, to go to where his lab had been. She let him, knowing he needed to explore for himself.

She had to take stock herself, with Kalana and Jahausa and Palala to help her understand. The village would need a new home, and somehow she knew it would not be on the lands Ornega had told them to go to.

`~`~`~`~`

The hike with the village as a whole was slower going than their own, and they spent three nights in the jungle.

Rae didn't question that Campbell sought her out each night, that they hung their hammocks side by side. When he had made his stand, requesting her to stay, she had found so many things shifting into place within herself. He challenged her to live while the villagers showed her how.

She'd miss hot showers, she admitted to herself, but the fingers brushing hers as she drifted to sleep held more promise than any first world luxury did. Here, life was truly lived, and if they did find that cure eventually... well, Aston would just have to deal with a little village being the clearinghouse for processing it and sending it out. She wasn't risking their people any more than Campbell would.

`~`~`~`~`


End file.
